From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V3 #32 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, October 6 1997 Volume 03 : Number 032 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Mary Coughlin in San Mateo, CA, The Sound [Richard ] spam & the guide and bel canto (and a long message) [Damon desJumeaux ] this week in music [meredith ] more snakes info [meredith ] Susan McKeown at the Bottom Line (Oct 2, 1997) [Michael Curry ] Re: Susan McKeown at the Bottom Line (Oct 2, 1997) [Silme@ix.netcom.com] Re: Susan McKeown at the Bottom Line (Oct 2, 1997) [Michael Curry ] Re: Hooverphonic ["Michael J. Doyle" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 10:11:24 -0700 From: Richard Subject: Re: Mary Coughlin in San Mateo, CA, The Sound Horter wrote: > I had never seen a show at a Border's but I was pleasantly surprised. Aside > from competing with the cash register, as she noted herself, it was a really > great, though shortish, set. I had never heard her before, but based on that > ranting letter from charley, I forced myself to get in the car, drive the 5 > minutes, and venture into the Brand Spankin' New Border's. Coolness. Does anyone else have the problem I have with Borders? Specifically, I have no problem in flatout refusing to patronize The Home Depot, Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, and the other corporate monsters that are killing small businesses everywhere. But Borders... I still buy all of my music and most of my books from locally-owned outfits, but also I find myself repeatedly drawn to the local Borders, and not just to spend an hour or two at the listening stations. I think it's the atmosphere. It has a sort of party feel, like everybody's having a great time spending money. I recently had occasion to spend three hours chatting with a good friend in a Borders 1800 miles from Maine, and it had the same sorta warm and inviting feel- How can this be?? Am I being co-opted despite my best efforts by a superb job of commercial interior design?? Or maybe it's the Italian sodas...?? r ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 09:04:22 -0700 From: Damon desJumeaux Subject: spam & the guide and bel canto (and a long message) jumping in a bit late on this one... (note, if you want to skip over the stuff about spam, there's a teensy bit about bel canto at the end of this message :) dan stark sighed: >>While I doubt there's much any of us can do about it at this point, I am >>taking some steps to reduce my vulnerability as much as possible. I don't >>post to usenet very often, but I have changed my newsreader's return >>address info to REMOVE_danstark@mnsi.net. well, for me it's far too late. somehow my pobox address got on a bunch of spammer's lists... i used to get the occasional spam, but for the last few months it's been usually between one and six a week. not as bad as many, i know, but still, GRRRRR. luckily pobox does have a spam filter feature that automatically deletes messages from known spammers' addresses, so that cuts down on the aggravation. in any case, since i started taking steps, i hadn't even thought of the ecto archives and the ectophiles' guide. ugh. i've pretty much given up on my current address, but in a year or two i'm hoping to be able to register my own domain and run my own server... and *then*, believe me, i'll be careful with my addresses. it'll be fun to have special ones for likely spam situations. as for this one, well. i haven't gone so far as to modify my return address and signatures, but i did recently go through all my web pages and changes things to the form damon(at)pobox.com with little explanatory notes throughout. and i rarely post to usenet.. and ecto and vegan-l are the only lists where my address is ever likely to turn up. i think vegan-l has archives on the web too. woj replied: >i'm not sure what, if anything, we can or will do about the archives. they >still have not been moved to smoe.org from ecto.org. my preference is to >keep them available on the web, since they are useful (hopefully moreso >since i want to increase their searchability to browsers). unfortunately, oh yes, i agree. >the two tools for preventing unauthorized access (userid/passwords and >restricting which hosts can access the webpages) are unwieldly for mailing >list archives, at best. anyone with ideas, feel free to let me know. yes... unweildy and probably in the end not very effective. i have two ideas: one possibility might be to use the password technique... just one userid and associated password. and rather than give that out on the list and in the faq, etc, simply have the link to the archives from the main ecto pages (and other linking sites) point to an intermediary page that says something along the lines of |go to the _archives_. | |note: when you follow the link above, you will be prompted for a userid and |password. simply enter `ecto' for the userid and `arcives' for the |password. this password is set up to discourage email-gathering robots. ...that way, a human knows what to do, but a spider will be stymied. and i don't imagine too many of the people who collect addresses actually just browse around on the web copying and pasting them into their databases ;) the other possibility would simply be to feed the existing archives en masse, and any new messages as they are added, through a perl script that seeks out email addresses and modifies them in some way, and then just include a note on the standard archive display page that anything of the form user(at)host.domain is an email address, and (at) should be replaced by @ (or whatever is used). kind of unweildy, but if someone wants to send mail to an address in the archives, they'll figure it out. i'd be happy to write such a script if you tell me how the archives are stored and what process they go through already to end up on the web server... it should just be a matter of letting this script have a go at the files on the way somewhere... and as far as the ectophiles' guide goes, neile, if you think you'd like to do something like that with the addresses in it, of course i'd be happy to write something to process the existing files, and then you could just follow the convention in future. let me know. of course i, being paranoid, always worry that any given method of spam foiling will become invalid as time goes on. i don't believe i've ever seen my own (at) method used, but if it became popular, well, it'd just be a matter of changing @ to (@|\(at\)) in a regexp somewhere (or modifying it to detect an added `nospam.' or spaces around the @ or whatever). but at least you'll foil the majority... and the human-only-interpretation sorts of techniques are a lot more awkward for humans to decipher, too... :) >for better or worse, most mailers will allow you to set your from: address >to whatever you want. (in eudora, it's your reply-to address in the options.) still, that's not foolproof. for example, i too use eudora. and since i'm using a mail redirection service, my return address and my pop account are not one and the same. so, here's what eudora stuck in the headers in one of my past posts to ecto: >X-Sender: damon@uniserve.com damon@uniserve.com was, at the time, my actual address. the from: line said damon@pobox.com, but my real address occurred elsewhere in the headers. perhaps with a bit of fiddling with eudora's ini files there's a way to turn this off, but i'm not going to look right now. and in any case, i think it might be a nice idea if the protection occurred at the level where our email hits the web... as a service from the person making the posts available publically to people who might not even be aware of the risks of plastering their email address all over the web. anyway, sorry about the rambling, i just get really worked up about spam sometimes. dan, i like the spam bait in the signature idea :) on a totally different subject, richard holmes discovered bel canto: >Bel Canto: Magic Box: >Just listening to this one about the fourth time after checking it >out from the library. Though it didn't immediately grab me, now >I'm really liking it. I know they've been mentioned here a bit, >but what CDs do you all recommend? Any background? as others have said, basically all of them. there are only, after all, three other albums... a paltry number by any EWS-ridden ectophile's standards. ;) not that i've managed to buy much music in the last year... *sigh*. anyway, the first two, _white out conditions_ and _birds of passage_, are very sparse and spartan, electronic and arctic, rather like being in dark, echoing, subterranean caves with drops of water falling from the stalagtites into the limpid pools below... and just all-around wonderful. _shimmering, warm & bright_ is very different, a lot more dancey, and much less sparse. plenty of instrumentation filling in what would've been echo-y hollow bits on the other two. i love all of them dearly... much more so, i'm afraid, than _magic box_. i do like mb, but it just doesn't have the... the *magic* of the others, for me (groan). still, do be warned that the first three are very different from mb, so you might want to ease your way in. the only constant is anneli drecker's incredible voice. well, that's enough from me for a month or so... ;) - -damon, putting loreena's new one on his christmas/birthday list because let's face it, he's not going to be able to get it before then anyway... :/ damon harper _/\_ "Hey, you sass those hoopy damon@pobox.com __\ /_ jumeaux? There're two froods laur & damon: jumeaux@pobox.com \ / who rully know where their http://pobox.com/~jumeaux/damon/ |/||\| towels are." -- ma jumelle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 21:31:49 +0100 From: emmy Subject: Belgian Music Okay, the first names that spring to mind (and also my faves over here) are: - - K's Choice (The Choice). I simply love "Not An Addict" and it's a really ironic thing to play during a (too) long IRC-session *grin* - - Axelle Red (sorry Yves ;-) ). I saw her play live at a festival (The Bunker Party at Glabbeek) last summer, and I thought she was brilliant. Even if her set at Dranouter was said to have been somewhat of a disappointment. Before this particular gig at Glabbeek, I wasn't really familiar with her work, but now I have her first album and am pretty impressed. - - Pitti Pollak. A female-singer-fronted band who sing jazzy poppy tunes. Very strong lyrics and Petra's stage-presence is really impressive. - - dEUS They're kind of our alternative rock-band and some of their songs are pretty good in my book ("Suds And Soda", "For The Roses"...). I wouldn't really describe the style as Ecto-music, though. They're a bit too 'loud' for that, IMGHO. - - Jo Lemaire Had a big hit in the 80's with Serge Gainsbourg's "Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais" (please excuse any spelling-errors). She appeared at Marktrock in Leuven this summer with a well-received set. - - Viktor Lazlo Ex-Eurovision-song-contest presenter. Sings mainly jazzy pop and evergreens, but some original stuff too. Well, those are my 'national faves'... :) Emmy NP= "Blurring The Edges" - Meredith Brooks - -,-`-<@ http://home.planetinternet.be/~elombaer/ased/ The alt.support.eating-disord F.A.Q. http://club.innet.be/~year2846 Music, Madness And Mayhem - My homepage @>-,-`-- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 19:22:36 -0400 From: meredith Subject: this week in music Hi! Well, I survived the week. Yay! :) I already posted about the NYC stop of the Scrappy Bitch Tour, and woj covered Tuesday's installment, but I do have a few things to add about that. Kinnie Starr was entertaining, but I don't think I'll feel the need to see her again. She was funny, but came across as quite immature. She was a hit with the (sparse) crowd, though. Warmed 'em up nicely for Veda. >veda was up next and she was brilliant. a mostly-different set from the >night before -- only two songs in common ("slumber queen" and >"bellyfishing" if i remember correctly). Yep -- the set consisted of, in no particular order, "Slumber Queen", "Sweet", "Seasoned", "Song For Snake", "26 Years", "Driven", "Bellyfish", and "The Group of Seven". I'm thinking she did "One Hot Summer" again too, but I can't remember exactly. (She told me afterwards that she had deliberately planned a set with minimal overlap from the previous evening because she knew we would be there again, and I think I almost believe her. :) >it's really amazing to watch her play because >her songs are so effortless, so beautiful, so lyrical. her music is really >something special. Amen. She definitely got the biggest applause of the night, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see her with a gig of her own at the Iron Horse soon -- she said she wants to work something out for when she's back this way in November. I know the owner was totally besotted with her music before she even got into town, and seeing her live will definitely finish off even the most cynical of listeners, so I'm keeping my eye on their calendar. >oh susanna finished up this evening. i imagine that i'll be losing >ecto-cred by saying so, but i liked her set too. her doom and gloom country >folk may not be an appropriate closer and her guitar skills may be lacking >but, for some reason, i like what she does. Okay, whatever. I was glad she came on after Veda, because otherwise there wouldn't have been much of an audience left. (She got to go last that night in honor of the fact that she was born in Northampton, whee.) I still maintain that the only thing she's got going for her is her voice. All in all, Veda's incredible performances made the whole ordeal well worth the trips. (And after the gig on Tuesday she gave me a hug! :) Thursday night woj and I made our way back into NYC to see Susan McKeown and Waterson: Carthy at The Bottom Line. Waterson: Carthy did a nice set of traditional English folk music. I wasn't overwhelmed by them, but I enjoyed their performance quite a bit. Susan joined them for a cool rendition of an old Methodist hymn to round out their set, which was a nice bonus. Then the full Chanting House took the stage and proceeded to blow me clear away once again. I don't know if it's just me or what, but IMO they're getting better and better. Susan's voice was definitely in fine form, and it was fun to note the little things that they're all doing a bit differently with the older songs, keeping them fresh and new. Folks, set aside a few bucks now for _Through The Bitter Frost And Snow_, a CD release of the songs that appeared on Susan McKeown and Lindsey Horner's cassette of the same name a year ago. While the cassette featured just Lindsey's bass and Susan's voice, this new release features full-band arrangements of those songs plus some new tracks. ("The Winter King" in particular ROCKS, and it rocked even more live the other night.) It's going to be out this week I think -- there's nothing about it on the Prime-CD web site yet, but I know it'll be available from them. It's going to be very, very, very good. Oh yeah, and Susan's got a single out for "Snakes"! It's a radio-only release, and it also contains the aforementioned "Winter King", as well as a live version of the Rosie Wall song "Daddy's Little Girl", recorded at Fez last February. Any self-respecting radio station who plays good music should have a copy, so maybe you'll be hearing it soon. (Personally, I'd rather request "The Winter King", but that would defeat the purpose of putting the wonderful "Snakes" out as a single, so I'll refrain and just wait to buy the album. :) Anyway. Yesterday woj and I spent the entire day in NYC -- we went to see the production of _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_ for which my best friend designed the costumes, before going to The Knitting Factory to see Suzanne Vega. We got together with my friend for brunch before the play, and afterwards had some time to kill before needing to be at the theater, so we decided to walk over to Tower to grab some of the recent new releases we'd been missing. For some reason woj decided to take the route that led down West 4th St., where eventually we came upon a giant inflated pint of Guinness, signifying the Guinness Oyster Festival. There was a really cool jazz band playing on a stage in the middle of the street, and I soon realized that the guy on bass clarinet was Lindsey Horner, and Jeff Berman, also of The Chanting House was playing drums! They have their own jazz band called Splendid Splinter, which among other things plays at The Knitting Factory on Monday nights. They were *really* good. Susan McKeown was rumored to be about to sing with them in their second set, but alas we had to get back to the theater, so we missed that. (Sam and/or Hillary, how was it?) We did eventually make it to Tower, though, in between dinner with Tamar, Graham, and JeffW, and the Suzanne Vega show. Picked up Bjork's _Homogenic_, Loreena McKennitt's _The Book of Secrets_, The Sundays' _Static and Silence_, and Mila Drumke's first album, _Gathering My Name_. _Homogenic_ didn't totally grab me on first listen, but I wasn't really giving it my full attention, so I'm going to wait to comment on it. Haven't listened to Loreena yet -- I definitely want to give that one my full attention, so I'm waiting for a better moment. The Sundays are on right now, can't comment on that one yet either. I can say, however, that I love the Mila Drumke disc. Can't wait to go through it again. So about Suzanne Vega. :) She ruled. Even though we were packed in like sardines and the three rows of people separating me from the stage were all too tall and we were stuck having to stand and my back still hasn't recovered, it was a wonderful show, and I'm very very glad we went. She performed every song from her first album except "Straight Lines": this surprised me but also made me very happy, since I think that will always be my favorite of hers, and it was great to see her do those old songs, both alone with her guitar and with the cool new arrangements of her Acoustic Ensemble. She also hit a lot of my other favorites: "Tired of Sleeping", "Gypsy", "Stockings", and "World Before Columbus", among others. I could have done without "Luka", but the new jazz-cabaret arrangement of "Tom's Diner" (the real version, not the DNA-ified one with all the "doo doo doo"s in it) was a revelation. Her between-song stories were hilarious -- her delivery reminded me quite a bit of Happy's style of between-song banter: very sarcastic and direct, with a devilish half-smile on her face. It was especially great to see her again, because last night was almost the tenth anniversary of the very first time I saw her play: Portland, Maine, on the second-to-last night of the Solitude Standing tour. (That day is also quite important to me because it's also the day I bought my very first Kate Bush album (_The Whole Story_), and my first 10,000 Maniacs album (_In My Tribe_) -- talk about pivotal moments! :) Suzanne Vega is the first musical artist I was ever actually a full-fledged *fan* of; her songs were the first to really grab me and force me to Just Listen. I was lost from the first time I heard "Left of Center", on the low-fi tape dub of the _Pretty In Pink_ soundtrack a now long-lost friend gave me to cure me from my embarrassing mid-80's pop music obsession. I remember procrastinating one afternoon my junior year in high school, transcribing the lyrics to "The Queen And The Soldier" and marveling at just how amazing I thought that song was. And there I was last night, standing not 8 feet away from the stage in the smallest venue I've ever seen her perform in, and she was doing my favorite songs from 10, 11 years ago and it was such an incredible experience. Yay. :) Apparently all of her Knitting Factory shows are being recorded for a future live release. They are also being broadcast at , but I'm having problems accessing their machine at the moment. She told a really funny story last night about how she didn't know the shows were being webcast until she got home Friday night and found 22 e-mail messages from people all over the world telling her how much they loved the performance. "And they also didn't tell us that the sound check had gone out over the Internet too. So now some guy in Australia knows that we ate dinner at the Burrito Bar." :> So that was the week that was, whoo-hoo. Nothing on the musical calendar for this week (unless something cool is happening in Rockford, Illinois this week that I'm not aware of -- that's where I'll be from Tuesday through Friday). Aren't you all glad. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | Boonton, NJ USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | |***TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: trajectory-request@smoe.org***| +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 19:27:07 -0400 From: meredith Subject: more snakes info Hi! The full listing of radio stations that have received Susan McKeown's "Snakes" single can be found at . If there's a station listed in your area, take some time to call and request it! If enough people do that and get the song played across the country, then, among other cool things, more areas of the US will get to experience the magic that is a Chanting House live performance. (And no, neither Susan nor Prime-CD are paying me for posting this. I'm just another satisfied customer doing the besotted fan-girl thing. I'll shut up now. :) +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | Boonton, NJ USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | |***TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: trajectory-request@smoe.org***| +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 18:32:48 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Curry Subject: Susan McKeown at the Bottom Line (Oct 2, 1997) Hi all, On Thursday night I attended a great performance by Susan McKeown & The Chanting House at the Bottom Line. The Bottom Line does two shows in a night, and I attended the early show while woj and Meredith attended the late one. Here's my review of the early performance. The show was a split bill with English traditional act Waterson:Carthy, who went on first. I had heard a lot of good comments about them, so I was rather disappointed to find that I was quite underwhelmed by their performance. Maybe their reputation had simply raised my expectations too high. I wasn't fond of the lead singer's voice at all, the fiddler sang well enough but I didn't care for her fiddle playing, and while I thought the high points of the performance were the tunes they chose to weight the set heavily toward songs. So what did I like? Umm... the melodeon player was pretty good. I enjoyed the second half of the show a great deal more, as Susan and the Chanters took the stage. Susan chose to start out their set with her rendition of "Bonny Boy", a song which she does solo. I thought it was a good way of starting things and, as all her solo pieces do, really demonstrated just how great her voice is. Next up was "Winter King", a new song that is found on the new _Through the Bitter Frost and Snow_ cd (which should be available later this week). It is an absolutely great song, and though this was the first time that the band had performed it live they did an awesome job of it. Not that I expected anything less. "Winter King" was followed by a mix of material from _Bones_, some of the many as yet unrecorded songs and another track from _Through the Bitter Frost and Snow_: Westlin' Winds Fortune Ballinaboula Seven Cold Glories Daddy's Little Girl I Know I Know Through the Bitter Frost and Snow Wheels of the World Albatross Snakes Black (encore) This was the only time I had seen the full band perform away from Fez, but despite a few problems with the sound system they were just as brilliant as ever. Susan's voice sounded wonderful, as always, and her guitar playing seems to get better every time I see her perform. As for the rest of the Chanters, Lindsay's playing of the double bass, bass clarinet and tin whistle was dazzling, Chris once again demonstrated his amazing skills on acoustic and electric guitar, Michelle was in fine form on cello and accordian, while Joe did his usual great job on drums. I picked up a copy of the brand new _Peter and Wendy_ cd (which Susan of course sings on) at the show, and I absolutely love it! I'll write a more detailed review soom, but for now I'll just say that it's almost certainly going to make my list of the ten best cds of 1997. Mike np: Loreena McKennitt -- Book of Secrets nr: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin | Michael Curry / mcurry@io.com / mcurry@compuserve.com | | http://www.io.com/~mcurry | | Am I bitter? Do I sound bitter? -- Veda Hille | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 20:07:43 -0400 From: Angelos Kyrlidis Subject: Re: BST: Suzanne Vega in NYC dee zed stroke zero one five wrote: > > also sprach Kenn: > > >Is anyone from NY or the outlying areas planning to attend Suzanne > >Vega's show at The Knitting Factory on Sunday (10/5)? > > a crowd of ectophiles (or whatever it is that a group of ectophiles is > called) will be at her saturday night show. besides meredith and myself, > jeff wasilko, tamar boursalian, valerie nozick, and maybe even > erstwhile-phile tim cook will be there. anyone else going to the saturday > night show? > > woj AAAAAA. I missed you!!! I was in the city from Thursday til Sunday... I was up front, next to the Cello player. Argh. I should have yelled Happy rules.. :) Wasn't it awesome? Angelos ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 18:54:31 +0000 From: Silme@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: Susan McKeown at the Bottom Line (Oct 2, 1997) Do you know if these new cd's will be available across the country? I'm sorry to hear the poor review of Waterson:Carthy. I'm an old-time Martin Carthy fan, and I've been begging the Planet Bluegrass folks for years to bring in *some* form of the Carthy clan to RMFF. I just missed a solo Carthy show when I was in England this past summer. I haven't seen him perform live in several years. I just wish Waterson:Carthy would cross the Mississippi and spend some time in the mountains! :) Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 20:00:08 -0500 (CDT) From: Michael Curry Subject: Re: Susan McKeown at the Bottom Line (Oct 2, 1997) On Sun, 5 Oct 1997 Silme@ix.netcom.com wrote: > Do you know if these new cd's will be available across the country? I assume that anyplace that carried _Bones_ might well end up with _Through the Bitter Frost and Snow_, but Hillary would have to speak to the details of that. 1-800-PRIME-CD will work of course. :) As for the Peter & Wendy cd, I have no clue about the distribution for that one, but I know there's both an 800 number and web page for Alula (the record company) so I'll post those with my review tomorrow. Mike | Michael Curry / mcurry@io.com / mcurry@compuserve.com | | http://www.io.com/~mcurry | | Am I bitter? Do I sound bitter? -- Veda Hille | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 03:58:01 +0200 (MET DST) From: yngveh@mo.himolde.no Subject: Happy news and norwegian artists Happy's albums have been available from Compact Huset for several years now (those are old news), but earlier today a fellow norwegian Ectophile told me that Akers Mic has found Building the Colossus and will get it in soonish. There are also possibilities for yet another store getting Happy, and that one is located here in Molde. A friend of mine suddenly got something to say about what CDs to order :) As he eagerly is trying out and liking my suggestions the Ecto section might get pretty interesting :) Upon request I'll list the norwegian bands/artists I would recommend, except for those mentioned all the time :) But first - What Velvet Belly album to get first? Lucia of course, but I think The Landing is easier to get at least at the moment. They should be available in Europe and the USA, but I've heard that they are hard to get most places. Alternative ways to get hold of those albums and other norwegian albums as well is to contact Compact Huset (address in the Ecto FAQ - not on the net yet) or Akers Mic (http://www.akersmic.no - though it is in norwegian only), and order the albums through them, or ask one of us Ectophiles in Norway for a CD-swapping. ok, to the list : Kari Rueslaatten She did release her first solo album this year after being part of the Trondheim based 3rd & The Mortal for a few years. During that time she never got to show how brilliant a song-writer she really is. Her songs are based upon norwegian folk-songs with some elements from celtic tradition. Her first album is about the forest, and how much she likes it there among the trees. She writes in norwegian, so for people outside Norway you just have to listen to the music which is excellent. Release Party I stumbled upon this band 3 years ago when I was reading Rock Furore (a norwegian alternative music magazine - it later merged with a paper called Puls and became Puls Furore). Last year I finally found it in a used record store in Oslo. I really do enjoy the album. It got this very happy feel to it, and it adds to many guitar-based norwegian bands of the 90s showing us Ectophiles that there actually are things happening up here north. Unni Wilhelmsen She released her 2nd album this year, and I must say that she is getting better and better. She is an huge Susanne Vega fan, so it is not very strange that she sounds like that too. I'm just looking forward to her next album released next year (so she has promised at least). Anja Garbarek An artist that did transform from a good artist on her first album to an excellent one on her 2nd. She was never happy with her first effort, and therefore she did take a break for 3 years to think about what to do next. She did end up with an album that is pretty amazing. The title of the album is Balloon Mood I think that was it for now, Yngve - -- ________________________________________________________________ Yngve Hauge | __ ___ __ | | _ www: http://aure.himolde.no/~yngveh/ |-- | | | ||-- |_||| |_ Irc-nick: One_Alien, (_)Yngve_ |__ |__ | |__|| | |||_|_ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 20:43:18 -0700 From: neile@sff.net (Neile Graham) Subject: Re: Sept. Possum Lodge meeting Hi, Dave-- More comments I'd like to swipe for the Guide if I may--the ones about Toni Price and Dianna Krall, at least. Please let me know if I may. Thanks! - --Neile At 9:33 AM 9/14/97, sspan wrote: >>Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 16:46:45 -0500 (CDT) >>From: kerry white >>Subject: Shawn Colvin > >> Tonight (CYYL) PBS Austin City Limits (If your TV guide says Bill >>Miller that's it!) > >I believe I've seen this one before... I was remember being particularly >impressed with Bill Miller, check him out if you get a chance.. > >Now, why would anyone pay $50 to see Sarah in a basketball arena? >First, as most people said, she's not the type of act that would >work well in this type of venue.. even so there are damn few singers >I would pay $50 to see anywhere.. well.. maybe Happy.. but she wouldn't >do that to us.. would she? Of course after paying for parking, one of >those $30 t-shirts (that they pay about $5 for, if that) and food >(god forbid you should buy a snack at the show) you're up to almost >$100 a person.. but, there are enough people out there willing to >pay these prices I guess... >Well.. anyway here's my weekend acquirements.. > >Hedningarna, the heathens fire: Well, it's different.. haven't listened >close enough to it yet to say more.. > >Toni Price, Sol Power: Toni is a fantastic singer from texas, I guess >you would call it country-blues, this new one was recorded live, >but it's new material. > >Dianna Krall, All for you: Wow.. I don't usually go for jazz, but I >can't stop playing this one long enough to go listen to that hedningarna >disc again... fabulous.. > >-- >++ -dave- ++ >+ irc.Dal.net #Panic_Beach + >+ IRCs Maria McKee channel + >++ ++ - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Neile Graham ..... http://www.sff.net/people/neile ..... neile@sff.net The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music .... http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 23:52:30 -0400 From: "Michael J. Doyle" Subject: _Portishead_ At 03:52 AM 10/5/97 +1000, Andrew Fries wrote: >And by the way, speaking of trip-hoppy things, I wonder what are your >opinions about the new Portishead? I'm not really into this genre as such, >but I enjoyed their debut - should I get the second one? My heart beat fast on Friday night when I spotted Portishead's second album, entitled _Portishead_, at Tower Records. After all, their first album, _Dummy_, is one of my top 10 favorite CDs of all time, and I've been listening to the first single from this new album ("All Mine") like mad for the past three weeks. My quivering hands snatched the new album to my breast while my wobbly legs bore me swiftly to the cashier. Since then, I've managed to give it two spins. That's far less than I expected. Am I disappointed? A little, but I rather think I need time to adjust. The unmistakable Portishead sound is there on this new album, but it has evolved into something harsher and more detached. The vocals are frequently filtered, making them sound like a recording of a recording -- akin to "Glory Box" but more extreme. Combine this with more samples, loops, scratching and hiss-pop of vinyl and you have an album that sounds composed entirely of found material. This seems part of an intentional push deeper into postmodernist territory. The video for "All Mine" depicts a girl, who is not the real vocalist, singing the song on some imaginary early 60s variety show. Choosing "Portishead" as the name of the album seems to imply they are a band pretending to be a band called Portishead. They are making a fiction of themselves. I loved _Dummy_ because it did not feel self-conscious. It had a postmodern bend, sort of posing as the soundtrack for an imaginary movie. But there was an honesty, a naturalness, a seamlessness that spoke beyond its form. _Portishead_ seems to stress its constructed nature. It's an evolution I accept; I may need a little time for my ears to catch up. My ears may also need time to latch onto particular songs; thus far "All Mine" is the only one I really dig. But I do have to remember that I didn't think much of _Dummy_ the first time I heard it. So... my final verdict is still out. It may indeed be a jewel, just not as bright as _Dummy_. - - Mike Michael Doyle Mike's Midnight Movie Reviews maeldun@i-2000.com http://vidkraft.com/m3review =========================================================================== "Nothing is too wonderful to be true." - - Michael Faraday ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 23:52:28 -0400 From: "Michael J. Doyle" Subject: Re: Hooverphonic At 08:28 AM 10/4/97 -0400, Heather Russell wrote: > >Funny you should mention that, because I'm going to see Fiona Apple in >Raleigh, NC next week, and noticed Hooverphonic is the opening act. > >If anyone else has heard them, what are your opinions on their music? >Are they worth seeing live? Well, I've said it here already, but Hooverphonic's _A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular_ ranks as my favorite album purchase of the year. They mix entrancing ambient synth and gorgeous dreamy vocals with deep trip-hop beats and samples. I have never seen them live, but now that I know they're opening for Fiona Apple, it looks like I'm gonna have to get me some tickets. Wow! [Mike does a little dance at the thought of seeing Hooverphonic live.] n.p. Hooverphonic, _A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular_ - - Mike Michael Doyle Mike's Midnight Movie Reviews maeldun@i-2000.com http://vidkraft.com/m3review =========================================================================== "Nothing is too wonderful to be true." - - Michael Faraday ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V3 #32 *************************